Heading West: A postblue noon adventure
by Thepolymathwriter
Summary: Melissa, Jonathan and Jessica are heading west in search of new midnighters. What will they find? Blue Noon spoilers! Rated T for some minor language and violence.


**No I'm not Scott Westerfield, nor do I own any of the original characters and settings. Also I know I've already started writing a post-blue noon fanfic, but this is a different take on things. Enjoy!**

"Pull over Flyboy," a voice sounded from the passenger seat of the pink Cadillac.

"Just a second," came the driver's reply.

"No pull over now!" Suddenly a hand shot out and gripped Jonathon Martinez's shoulder, jerking him and the steering wheel to one side. The car went skidding off of the remote gravel road and onto a small grassy patch, the back wheels spinning out and creating muddy ruts in the grass.

"What the hell was that for?" Jonathon turned to look at Melissa

beside him.

"I told you to pull over, you didn't want to, so I made you," she said simply. Jonathon turned back to face the wheel, his knuckles white as he clenched it. Spending day in and day out with the goddess herself was getting tiring. At first it seemed manageable; especially with the new and improved Melissa, but as the endless hours of driving had continued his patience was wearing thin. The only release from all the tension was when the blessed 25th hour of the day freed him from Flatland and also brought Jessica back to him. She was the main reason he'd agreed to deal with Melissa in the first place. He did have to give the mindcaster some credit though; after all living for 16 years with thousands of voices circulating through your head would make any normal person certifiably insane. Not saying Melissa isn't crazy...of course she still is Melissa after all. You know that expression "they're a few crayons short of a box"? Well to Jonathon, Melissa's crayon box was a little overloaded with too many crayons. That girl was not right in the head, but aren't all mindcasters that way? He thought of batty old Maddy sitting up in the attic ranting on about air conditioning and television being the cause of basically the extinction of midnighters from Bixby. And her weird obsession with tea. And especially the kinds of things she had done to people. Jonathon's simple conclusion was that mindcasters were a "cuckoo in the coconut" bunch.

"Do you have a scent?" Jonathon had recently been comparing Melissa's detection of new midnighters to a bloodhound on the trail. They got the scent and made a beeline for the source. Of course so far in the last month none if those scents seemed to have worked out, seeing as no new midnighters had been found.

"Its faint," she held her head up almost like a serpent tasting the air, "but there. A 14 year old girl nearby was just thinking about her

strange blue dreams." Jonathon sighed. Searching out potential newbies was statistically bound to be more successful during the hour when here were no other minds around to muddle Melissa's casting, yet the goddess was still determined to search during daylight as well.

"How far away?"

"Hmmm," Melissa closed her eyes for a moment, "that way. About three Miles." She pointed west, the very direction they had been traveling this entire time. On the very Western horizon he could see the sun beginning to conclude it's rotation across the sky. If only Dess were here, she could probably figure how much daylight was left. Jonathon felt a small twinge of guilt for leaving the polymath back in Bixby with Rex. Out of all the midnighters except Jessica, Dess was the most like a friend to him, and leaving her with her only acquaintances being a half-darkling boy struggling with his inner demons and a mentally whacked old lady who could hardly think straight. By now he wouldn't be surprised if Dess herself had gone crazy.

"Flyboy?" Melissa nudged his arm with one gloved hand, pulling him out of his thoughts.

"Oh...oh, yea," he stuttered and shifted the car into drive, slowly easing it back onto the road.

The car's front tires spun against the harsh gravel of the road as Jonathon revved the engine in an attempt to pull out of the grassy patch they had ended up in. They churned up mounds of grass and dirt, sending it flying into the air.

"C'mon," Jonathon hissed through clenched teeth as he continued to jam his foot against the pedal. Finally it jerked up onto the road. Beside him, Jonathon could hear Melissa let out a sigh of relief.

"You don't trust my mad driving skills?" he joked, watching her relieved expression.

"No," Melissa replied distantly, "the girl, the one I can taste, she was traveling in away from us, but she's staying put now." Melissa turned and looked at him. "What are you waiting for? Let's get going."

Jonathon fumbled for the gas pedal and shifted the car into drive, pulling back out onto the road. Finally they were going again. The car rumbled along for several minutes of silence, Jonathon watching Melissa intently for any sign he was driving in the wrong direction. She remained oddly stoic, starring intently out the window. Jonathon guessed she was probably mindcasting.

"Turn here!" Melissa said suddenly as he was halfway through the intersection. Jonathon lurched the wheel once again to one side, urging the car around the corner just in time. The back wheels skidded in the gravel for a split second before righting themselves. Jonathon wiped the sweat from his brow as the car straightened out onto the new road. This time it had that rough asphalt, not smooth and pleasant like most city streets but still not the coarse gravel of the previous road. They rumbled along for several minutes and soon the landscape began to change from empty rolling hills to gently plowed farms and homesteads. Jonathon immediately thought of the farms he'd seen on TV.

Next thing he'd know there would be a woman out in the yard calling 'soo-ee!'.

"Its coming up now," Melissa said, and Jonathon could hear a faint trace of excitement in her voice, something he hadn't heard much of from the bitch goddess before. "Right up there," she pointed ahead to a driveway fronted by a purple mailbox. As Jonathon approached it, he gently pulled the car over to the side but still left it running.

"What are you doing?" Melissa asked, turning to look at him.

"What are we going to do?" he said, "I mean we can't just barge in there and find this girl, claiming her dreams are a reality and she posses a supernatural ability to fight the very essence of her nightmares. Her parents would either call the police, run us off the property, or send us to a padded cell."

"Not if I can help it," she smiled sinisterly, cracking her knuckles through her leather gloves.

"No," Jonathon almost put a hand out to stop her, but decided that may be a bad idea, "going in there and warping the minds of her parents may not be the impression we're trying to give."

"Then what do you suggest all-mighty acrobat?"

"Head to Albuquerque, it's only a ten minute drive away and where we last left Jessica. Wait until midnight, get Jessica, and come back during the hour to meet this new girl," Jonathon answered. The plan they had made for traveling with Jessica was simple: he would fly her ahead as far as possible, then go back to Melissa and drive with her during daylight until they reached where he had last left Jessica.

Melissa nodded and Jonathon started down the road again, passing the

purple mailbox. He drove to the end of the small road and turned out onto the interstate. Neither him nor Melissa spoke as they drove into the outskirts of the city and up to a small drive-in motel. Before they'd left Bixby Dess had fixed them up a free credit card account under false names easily enough so money was no problem. Jonathon was now Santiago Marvelo and Melissa was now Michele Michaels.

They purchased and checked into lucky room 39, leaving all their belongings in the car. The room was scungy and full of tacky linens, exactly what Jonathon expected from that kind of place. There was a nasty looking stain in one corner that may have been red wine or something else entirely, and whole place reeked of smoked beef.

"I taste..." Melissa started but Jonathon stopped her.

"I don't need to hear about all the bad stuff that happened here," he said simply, "let's just chill until midnight comes." Melissa nodded and made her way over to one of the bed, sitting down on it. The mattress sagged in as she sat, and a shrieking creak erupted from its ancient springs.

"Eww," she muttered and lied down, placing her headphones into her ears. Jonathon guessed this was a signal that she was done with him until midnight so he carefully took a seat on the other bed and flicked on the TV. He flipped through the lovely variety of 6 channels for a few minutes before settling down to watch Oprah. Jonathon sighed and leaned back against the pillows, feeling his eyelids begin to droop. No, he couldn't sleep now, he had to stay awake. He forced his eyes open and tried to focus on the screen, but his mind grew fuzzy and he felt himself losing focus. Finally he gave in and succumbed to the blackness of sleep.


End file.
